


Potentiality

by prairiecrow



Series: One Degree of Separation [7]
Category: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Genre: Experiment, Free Will, Imprinting, Love, M/M, Moral Dilemma, Programming, Robots, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hobby considers an experiment which might change his life -- and Joe's -- forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potentiality

**Author's Note:**

> Set approximately one year after the end of the movie.

Allen Hobby knew as much about the workings of the mecha species as any person currently alive: he was, after all, a widely recognized genius in the field and the man who had pioneered the mapping of the impulse pathways of a single neurone, a breakthrough that had led to the controversial David project. In spite of its conspicuous failure in execution due to unsuspected instability within the family chosen for the initial trial, that project still held tremendous promise, although now that the Anti-Robot Militia and other anti-mecha organizations had gotten wind of it the whole thing seemed likely to be abandoned due to the intensity of public backlash.

 _If a robot could genuinely love a person,_ as one member of Hobby's team had put the central issue back on a dark and rain-swept afternoon over three years ago, _what responsibility does that person hold toward that mecha in return?_ Hobby could still remember her nervous smile. _It's a moral question, isn't it?_

 _The oldest one of all,_ Hobby had responded. _But in the beginning, didn't God create Adam to love Him?_

That had put the question to rest — superficially, at least. But now, on an afternoon similarly grey and gloomy, Hobby found himself pondering it yet again, in a way that was deeply and disturbingly personal.

Cold winter rain pattered against the windows of his personal workshop, although its restless chill did not penetrate to the heart of the space, where bright clear light shone down in a shaft upon a mecha examination table. The machine that currently lay upon it was deactivated: its long slender form, clad in a stylish dove-grey business ensemble, was perfectly motionless, even its simulation of breathing temporarily suspended, and its face was opened and peeled back from the metal skull beneath to reveal its cube port, which was presently empty. The cube itself lay in the palm of Hobby's hand as he stood in the shadows by the monitoring station he had just extracted it from, gazing down upon it with the full focus of his immensely powerful intellect — and, uncharacteristically, of his heart, which had so seldom been utterly at peace since the death of his son nearly ten years ago.

 _I could do it,_ he was musing. _It might take another ten years, but it's certainly possible. The secondary processing path is already in place: all it would take was the installation of a series of Nortian algorithms to reinforce it and amplify it, and then…_

He glanced up at the body on the table, as if Joe might have something to say on the matter: the lover-robot had developed a habit, sometimes disconcerting but almost always gratifying, of surprising him with unexpected questions and observations. But Joe, of course, was actually in his hand: the attractive form of a young male was only the vehicle for his consciousness, and consequently Hobby always found himself handling this particular mecha's cube with far more care than he bestowed on the brains of other, lesser machines.

Even now it seemed to glow against his palm with subliminal warmth. He smiled slightly, amused by his own flight of fancy. Joe's nuclear engines were embedded in his chest: the cube itself contained only a battery sufficient for keeping its data streams intact in a suspended state.

_It would be difficult to adapt the procedure, at least as difficult as it was to create the imprinting protocols in the first place. But I could…_

A gust of wind blew hissing shadows against the tall windows, rattling the glass in its frames.

_I could give him what I gave to David._

Another voice rose from his heart, whispering bitterly: _And what_ did _you give to David? His last hours were full of fear, longing and misery. He needed Monica, and if you succeed in imprinting Joe, he'll need you just as intensely and just as irrevocably. Or, you could end up simply destroying his mind — his unique, irreplaceable mind. And what then?_

His gaze rose again, seeking the lover-robot's face — and even in its present state, with the mask of human handsomeness split wide open in a way that most people would find disturbing, he still found the sight of it beautiful. There was something sleek and clean about the metal substructures, and when he stepped out from behind the monitoring station to stand at Joe's side he couldn't resist touching the steel curve that underlaid the smooth "cheekbone" he had so often caressed and kissed, tracing it with the most delicate stroke of his fingertips.

 _But look at all he is now,_ the force of intellect argued, _even unaugmented. I could make him so much more. I could make him blossom in ways that would be wondrous beyond measure. I could give him the ability to laugh, to desire, to love… to dream…_

_And he would be mine. Utterly mine, for the rest of our lives._

His heart insisted: _He's yours already._ And Hobby knew that this was true in far more than a merely legal sense: their shared experience of the child-mecha who had been swallowed by the sea had bound them together, certainly beyond Hobby's ability to untie. _And if you imprint him, your death would mean his death. Is that what you want? To give him a dubious gift and then take away the decades he might have continued to exist after your short mortal life was over?_

And his intellect countered: _Decades that he might spend neglected, abused, or simply treated as disposable — ending, perhaps, at a Flesh Fair? No! I won't permit that to happen to him. I told him I would keep him safe, and that I'd never abandon him — and those are promises I intend to keep. Imprinting him, and including a protocol that will erase his cube when I repeat the imprint sequence or when I myself die, is the only way to be sure of that._

Before his heart could protest again he slotted the cube back into its port, watching as it sank home with a tiny whirr and the two halves of Joe's face slid back together, joining seamlessly to each other and then to the derma that surrounded them. With a hand laid lightly on the mecha's shoulder he reactivated the robot's dormant pathways, and saw electric life flow back into those wide jade eyes an instant before their gaze slid sideways to focus on his face.

"Hello, Allen," Joe said with his voice like the soft velvet music of a perfectly tuned instrument, and Hobby smiled again, this time more widely. "Did it go well?"

"Very well," Hobby assured him, and gave his shoulder a brief affectionate rub and squeeze before letting go and stepping back. "You can get up now."

Joe sat up and swung his legs over the side of the table, then rose to his feet with a dancer's easy grace. "Are we done for the day, then?"

"For now," Hobby replied, but there must have been a lingering trace of disquiet in his own expression, because Joe cocked his sleek head to the left. 

"Allen?" His exquisite black eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. "Is something the matter?" 

Hobby smiled again, a little sadly this time. It had taken the better part of a year to teach Joe that his questions were always welcome, even if he had to save them up until he was alone with his human owner. Now Hobby stepped forward again and laid a reassuring hand to that false and silken cheek. "Your scans were perfect," he assured the mecha, but left _More perfect than you could ever understand from the point of view of what I'm contemplating_ unvoiced. He emphasized his approval with a quick kiss. "Absolutely perfect."

And Joe smiled back at him with a pleasure that was, so far as Hobby could tell, as genuine as any a mecha could be capable of. 

_But there could be so much more…_

"Go back to the office and transfer those files I was working on to the Cloud, would you?" He turned away to set about deactivating the lab's equipment, listening to Joe's swift light footfalls as he took his graceful leave and thinking, reluctantly, that it might come down to presenting the mysterious creature who now shared his life with a gift so seldom given to one of its kind: the gift of choice in determining its own destiny. But could Joe be trusted with a decision of that magnitude?

Hobby was beginning to suspect that the answer would turn out to be 'yes' — and that he, himself, was already half in love, which was a highly undesirable position when it came to making rational and objective decisions about the object of one's affections. That train of thought led naturally to the reactions of his colleagues if they ever so much as suspected how far he'd… with a conscious effort he put that prospect firmly from his mind. Potentiality was not certainty, even if every day that passed led to an incremental but definite increase in probability. 

By the time Joe returned he had banished the persistent questions of responsibility and obligation to the future, along with the prospect of an imprinting protocol that would actually work on a neuronal cube modelled on technology that was almost a century old. It might well be years before he was ready to gaze into those brilliant eyes and offer the clockwork mind that enlivened them the chance to take an unprecedented leap into the unknown — a chance to belong to him in ways it could not now imagine, and to…

He turned again to face Joe, and the sight of his mecha standing in the doorway — willowy, poised, head tilted expectantly in a quirk of body language he now knew as well as any of his own — raised the inevitable prospect that possession, in that case, might well end up going both ways. But Hobby had long since come to the conclusion that this risk, at least, was acceptable in the face of all that stood to be gained from the proposed experiment: a whole new mode of existence for both of them, filled with the marvellous possibilities of dreams not only comprehended, but shared — and realized.

THE END


End file.
